


Parallel

by amoeve



Series: Zutara Month 2015 [11]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-14
Updated: 2015-12-14
Packaged: 2018-05-06 19:33:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 822
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5428103
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amoeve/pseuds/amoeve
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Katara is alarmed by the parallels between her family and Zuko’s.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Parallel

Zuko finds Katara leaning on the desk in his office, tears pouring down her face, one hand folded over her bump as if that’s all that’s protecting their unborn baby from the world.

“Katara!” he can’t contain his alarm. He’s thankful that he insisted on the safety precaution of being able to remove all of his regalia with a flick of his wrists, in case he’s ever attacked in court – the over-robes crumple as he steps out of them and hurries to his wife. “Are you all right? Is the baby – ?”

She grabs handfuls of his shirt. “I’m going to be a terrible mother,” she sobs, burying her face in his shoulder. “The baby’s fine _now_ , but what about when it’s born?”

Zuko is nonplussed. “What?”

She steps back, shaking all over. “Have you never noticed that our families are like mirror-images of each other?”

He blinks. “What, because we both lost our mothers?” He guides her towards one of the day-beds that can be quickly made up if he’s insisting on working through until dawn. “Are you worried that you didn’t have a good example to follow?”

“I can walk, Zuko!” she snaps. “I’m pregnant, not made of porcelain!” And then she covers her mouth and looks horrified and almost deflates into the chair. “This is what I mean,” she says, sadly, and more tears leak down her face.

Zuko has learned a thing or two about diplomacy since his hot-tempered wife began carrying their child. “I’m sorry, Katara,” he says, as gently as he can. “I don’t understand what you’re saying.”

She twists the tassel of a cushion in her hands. “We both lost our mothers, yes,” she says, “and our fathers were absent, leading nations and fighting in the war. And – and – ”

He takes her hand. “Katara. I’m sure you’re going to be a wonderful mother.”

“But I’m _Azula_ ,” she cries, helplessly, and he still doesn’t understand. “You and Sokka, you both struggled so hard with your expectations and had to fight to find your way in the world. It shaped you, it made you who you are. _And_ you’re the older brothers. I became a master waterbender in less than a year, Zuko!”

And then he gets it. The younger sister, the bending prodigy, the one who didn’t have to fight to find her calling, who hit perfection early on and whose brother found it hard to handle. “Oh, my love,” he says, and he gathers her into his arms. “No. You’re nothing like my sister.”

Katara thumps him, not raising her head. “You’re just trying to make me feel better. I’m going to be a terrible mother because I don’t understand what it is to struggle.”

“Yes, you do,” he says, and it isn’t gentle any more, and he shouldn’t be angry with his pregnant wife, but he can’t stand that she’s comparing herself to his sister, that she’s trying to draw parallels between them. “You’re the kindest and most caring person I know, Katara, because you know _exactly_ how hard it is to struggle, without your mother, without your father, without a city to support you. Just you and your brother running a tiny, forlorn tribe.”

“Zuko,” she says, like he’s missed the point, and he tilts her face up so that she’s looking him right in the eyes.

“You are already a wonderful mother,” he insists. “Because you mother everyone, all the time, even when they don’t want you to. You have room in your heart for everyone you see, where Azula has nothing but her love of power. Katara, you can’t stand the idea that someone might feel that nobody cares about them, so you make yourself the person who cares. You make yourself the one who stops in the street to feed the hungry, who jeopardised Aang’s cover in the Fire Nation to fix the problems of one enemy village. And I think that makes you amazing.” She’s sobbing all over the front of his shirt, now.

“Don’t be so nice to me,” Katara says between sniffles. “I have a terrible temper and I like freezing people to the floor when they annoy me.”

“Yes, your flaws are a relief,” Zuko says, dryly. “It means I’m not outshone by my wife every minute of every day.”

She looks up at him. “As if you would be.”

He rests his hand on her belly, where their baby is safe. “Do you trust me?”

She rolls her eyes. “No, I married a man I don’t trust, who just happens to rule a quarter of the world.”

He decides to play her game. “Then, as Fire Lord, I command you to stop spreading treasonous lies about my wife. She’s brilliant. And she’s going to be an excellent mother.”

Katara sniffs, but she smiles, just a little. “Really?”

He takes her hands and folds them together over the bump, and presses a kiss to her hair. “Really.”


End file.
